Chemistry
provides nice examples of molecular nanomagnets showing quantum
effects in the solid state. Still, a great challenge is the
manipulation of the spins in these molecules for a sufficiently long
time. In terms of quantum computing, this means the preservation of
quantum coherence, i.e. all the information on the wave function,
during the application of many quantum gate operations. This is a
daunting task, but fortunately chemistry can provide the basics for
the rational design and optimization of the building blocks with the
aimed quantum behavior.

Among
these molecular building blocks, magnetic polyoxometalates (POMs)
combine a rich magnetochemistry with an arbitrarily low abundance of
nuclear spins [1]. Here we will show that in these molecular metal
oxides a high coherence can be achieved by chemically and
structurally minimizing the sources of decoherence [2,3]. We will
show the excellent potential of these molecules not only for the
storage of quantum information but even for the realization of
quantum algorithms [4].